Lockheed C-5

Adventures on the Air Refueling Track

February 23, 2009

The last two posts covered all the procedural steps necessary to accomplish an air refueling mission or qualification.  Completing an AR mission is an exercise in flying formation with another aircraft, specifically in close trail formation. Just as in any other formation flying, maintaining position involves recognizing relative movement between the airplanes and managing the […]

Read the full article →

Aviation History – Air Refueling the C-5, Part 2

February 20, 2009

This is the second half of a 2-part post on air refueling the Lockheed C-5. Part 1 of Air Refueling the Lockheed C-5 may be found here. Air Refueling the C-5, Moving In We left off with the receiver in the pre-contact position with both aircraft ready to conduct air refueling.  At this point, the […]

Read the full article →

Aviation History – Air Refueling the C-5, Part 1

February 18, 2009

I had originally intended to post a single article on Lockheed C-5 air refueling, but I have been typing away and see that it is way too long for a single post, so I’ll break it up into two parts. Part 2 will be up in two days. Air Refueling Procedures Before we get into […]

Read the full article →

Aviation History – Chapter 2.5 – Lockheed C-5 Landing Gear

February 12, 2009

I’ve been doing research for the next post on air refueling, which should be up in a couple of days. In the process I found these two videos which  show the operation of the Lockheed C-5 landing gear.  I tried to describe the operation in words in my last post covering some of the unique […]

Read the full article →

Aviation History – Chapter 2 – The Lockheed C-5

February 4, 2009

Let’s See, What else could we put in it? The C-5 was the first Jumbo-sized aircraft to be built and, unfortunately, the designers tried to include everything that anybody would ever want in a cargo aircraft. It originally had a built-in weight & balance system that used strain gauges on the landing gear legs. The […]

Read the full article →